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“How Long Does it Take You to Make That?” Solved, SPM, and Other Curious Crochet Questions

If you’re a crocheter and have ever crocheted around anyone, you know that there are certain questions that just end up being asked by the people watching you.

I took a poll on Instagram and found that the most-asked question is, “What are you knitting?”. Uh oh. If you’re reading this and you don’t crochet or knit, I must tell you right now that it makes crocheters pretty feisty when you ask them what they’re knitting when they are actually crocheting.

Even Batman gets a little upset . . .

PhotoCred: Pinterest

Other popular questions include,

“How did you learn to make that?”

“What do you put inside there to make it fluffy?”

“Can you make me one?” closely followed by, “How much do you charge.” (Just as an interesting side note, almost all the guys I talk to tell me I’m not charging enough. Is it just a guy thing? Hmm…)

And, “What are you going to do with it when you finish it?”

Do any of these questions sound familiar to you?

Another very common question crocheters get asked is, “How long does it take you to make one of those?”

This has to be one of the most difficult questions to answer. At least for me, personally.

I mean, there are few times when I sit down and crochet an entire animal in one sitting whilst timing myself at the same time. And then there’s also stuffing and assembling to count in as well. I always find it hard to give a confident answer to this question and I know I’m not the only one!

Well, thanks to a little math, gone are the days of hesitation when answering these kinds of questions! I have come up with an almost fool-proof way of mathematically figuring out how long it takes to make any given amigurumi! (This can also apply to wearable and household crochet items as well.)

Now you can figure out how long it takes to make your favorite project with just one minute of crocheting and a little bit of math!

Disclaimer: This method is not completely accurate, but sure takes a lot of guesswork out and makes for some fun facts!

Let’s Figure it Out

First, you need to know some basic arithmetic. Are you able to do simple adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing? Good! Let’s take it one step at a time. (I really feel like this should be a WikiHow article.)

1.) Grab an already existing crochet project. Get a stopwatch and a stitch marker. Crochet a stitch and mark it with your stitch marker. Now start your stopwatch and crochet as many stitches as you can in the space of a minute. (Don’t rush your work, just crochet as you normally would.) Stop the stopwatch when the minute is up. Now counting from where your stitch marker is, how many stitches did you make in the space of a minute? Write this number down for future reference. We’ll call this number our SPM (Stitches Per Minute.)

Extra credit activity (not required for this project): Want to know how many stitches you can crochet in an hour? Just take your SPM and multiply that number by 60. Voila! Now you can brag to everyone that you can crochet X amount of stitches per minute!

2.) Grab your favorite crochet pattern . . .

3.) . . . And a calculator

4.) Now here’s the part that takes the most time. You know the number in parentheses that should be after every round in your pattern? Yup, you’re going to add all those numbers up. Starting with the first piece, (in my case, the head), add all these numbers up. 6 + 12 + 18 + 24 + 30 etc. Don’t forget when you have multiple rounds with the same stitch count to add every round. Do this quickly by multiplying the number of rounds by the stitch count (ex. 5 rounds x 30 = 150). After each body part, write it down on a piece of paper. At the end, we’ll add all these numbers up and get our total!

5.) When you’re done adding up all the stitches, enter this grand total in the calculator. Now divide that number by your SPM (stitches per minute) number. Now take that number that you just got and divide it by 60. What did you come up with? That is how many hours it takes you to crochet your amigurumi! (If you have to decide on rounding up or rounding down, always round up.)

6.) For number 6, we have to do a little bit of guesswork. We now know exactly how long it takes to crochet all the pieces, but we still haven’t added in time for assembly and stuffing. Depending on the size and complexity of your project, this could be anywhere from a half an hour to two hours. It’s your guess! Guess wisely! ;)

7.) Now go post on your favorite social media and let the world know the facts!

5 thoughts on ““How Long Does it Take You to Make That?” Solved, SPM, and Other Curious Crochet Questions”

People do ask weird questions. I do tatting as well, and use a crochet hook to pull the thread through for the joins. I had one woman tell me I must be doing crochet because I’m using a crochet hook…
I will say I’ve never tried timing myself. I suspect if I knew how much time I spent knitting, crocheting and tatting I’d feel guilty. (Well, a little bit, anyway.)
;-)

I need to do some math! This will be really helpful. I’ve only ever timed myself on about 3 amis because it’s so hard to do one in just one sitting with two small kids (toddlers) running around! Thank you!

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